Whitefish responds to inflammatory rhetoric

In his letter to the editor (Class action suit against Whitefish moves forward, Oct. 26) Paul Gillman made numerous misrepresentations of fact and even went so far as to publicly disparage a city of Whitefish employee. This letter is intended to respond to Mr. Gillman’s misguided and inflammatory rhetoric and set the record straight. 

Two things should be noted initially. The first is that Mr. Gillman is not an impact fee expert. In fact, to our knowledge, he has no professional experience calculating impact fees for any municipality, let alone one located in Montana.The second is that Mr. Gillman is not a plaintiff in the class action lawsuit pending against the city, yet seems to be the “man behind the curtain” in court and in the media.  What are the motives, who is benefiting here, and how?

In the summer of 2021, the city discovered an error in the calculation of water and wastewater impact fees that occurred between Jan. 1, 2019, and July 31, 2021, involving fixture counts assigned to single-head, standalone showers. The city publicly acknowledged the error and started an audit to determine what refunds were owed. Due in large part to Mr. Gillman’s efforts, a class action lawsuit was filed against the city while it was attempting to remedy the error. In the interest of promptly refunding fees, the city continued to move forward.